Californians expect Clinton to keep all those campaign promises

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, January 19, 1997

1997-01-19 04:00:00 PDT CALIFORNIA -- WASHINGTON - Bill Trampleasure, 68, a retired mail carrier from Berkeley, crossed the continent this week to witness what he calls a miracle - the peaceful dawn of another presidential era.

"It's a chance to show how much hope I have for my country, and for President Clinton's second term," says Trampleasure, a Democratic die-hard, tears welling in his eyes, his lapel button reading "The Dream Lives On."

Three thousand miles away, San Francisco SupervisorSusan Leal will watch Monday's inaugural from home. She is determined to remind the White House of promises made to California during the presidential election.

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"We got the candy, we got the flowers, we had a hot date," says Leal of Clinton's courtship of California.

"But we don't want to be jilted. And as an elected official, I'm getting nervous."

Leal and other Democrats remember well the president's 29 swings through the Golden State the past four years, and his impassioned election eve plea: "California, I need you one more time!"

California came through: Clinton mined the state for 51 percent of the popular vote, 54 electoral votes and millions in donations to the Democratic Party.

Now, as final details are being readied for the 53rd Presidential Inauguration on the West Front steps of the Capitol, Leal isn't alone among Californians who liked being needed - but expect results.

State officials, grass-roots organizers and voters say they want the president's help to:

*Protect children, older people and immigrants who may be forced into poverty by welfare overhaul.

*Provide money to improve California's public schools and better prepare the state's youth for the next generation of high-technology jobs.

*Keep California's environment safe - and send the state enough federal disaster aid to rebuild levees and repair millions of dollars in damage from the recent floods.

*Back the efforts of Silicon Valley companies to protect their trade secrets, increase research and development and topple trade barriers to put their products on the market, here and abroad.

"Clinton is not running for re-election - he's running for history," says Republican economist Martin Anderson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a former policy advisor to Ronald Reagan. "He gave all this attention to California. He said he loves us . . . in terms of delivering for California, he can do more."

"While I'm certain that President Clinton reaped some political benefit from his demonstrated interest in California, I would hesitate to say that was the only reason he was paying attention," says Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-S.F. "California (makes up) one-eighth of the country - and our issues have tremendous impact on the rest of the nation: economy, education, environment."

Who speaks for California?

But even the joyful Democrats have expressed concerns about California's place in the second term.

"In terms of personnel at the White House and in the cabinet - there's no denying that," Pelosi says. "Leon Panetta was, and is, a tremendous resource . . . quite remarkable and important." He and other insiders "did a good job impressing the Clinton administration that any agenda would have to have a heavy California focus. We do not have what we had before."

California Democrats are watching Clinton's shift to the moderate political center, and Vice President Al Gore's rising status as the Democratic Party's most formidable presidential hopeful for the next election. Both factors, insiders say, will influence what lies ahead for California.

"It's no longer a question of what (Clinton) needs us for - it's what Al Gore needs us for," says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, senior associate at the Center for Politics and Economics at the Claremont Graduate School. "The reality is: the Al Gore for president campaign has begun and California is the battleground . . . that will drive the decision-making as much as anything."

Still, she says, there will be a difference for Californians from Clinton's first term, when "people knew they had a number to call in the White House . . . (and) the California presence was critical in helping to attempt to solve important issues. We didn't get what we wanted - but we weren't left out in the cold either."

Now, insiders are scrambling to know: "Who will handle those calls?" she says.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, in her Senate office greeting Californians arriving for the inaugural, says she believes new chief of staff Erskine Bowles is sensitive to the feeling that Californians are losing their influence.

"So far, I've had very good luck in being able to talk to him (Bowles) . . . and he's made a commitment to our caucus to return our calls," she says, then adds with a hearty laugh, ". . . of course, he didn't say what time of night they'd be returned."

But Pelosi says the presence of high-level staff members may not be as important in the second term.

"I will have no hesitation to call the president directly on any issue." And Gore will be "a very significant California advocate . . . on technology, economy and education issues," Pelosi said.

Bob Mulholland of the state Democratic Party agrees Gore will be a key presence, noting the vice president's trip this month to survey flood damage - and to announce $20million in federal emergency aid. "Look who was here passing around the sandbags during the floods - Al Gore," he says.

White House eye on technology

"High tech issues are of paramount importance to the president and Gore, and leaders in Silicon Valley, like (venture capitalist) John Doerr and Regis McKenna, all have an ear to the president," Torres says.

And that may have the biggest effect on Clinton's California connection in the coming term, insiders say.

"California is simply too important to forget . . . in terms of technology, the companies, and people who run them," says Dudley Buffa. Buffa heads the Lafayette-based Institute for a New California and co-authored "Taking Control: Politics in the Information Age" - currently a hot book in Clinton's White House, dog-eared by both the president and the vice president.

"Because California is so heavily into the Information Age economy - and (Clinton) wants to know about it and speak to it, there's reason for him to continue to address these state needs," says Morley Winograd, a voice in the Democratic Leadership Conference and Buffa's co-author.

"Gore has an even more in-depth understanding of technology issues."

Among the issues are Clinton's ideas for expanding government's role in training workers in new technologies, encouraging computer literacy, expanding technology in the classroom and creating tax credits for college, he says.

Buffa and Winograd predict Silicon Valley will assist Clinton in forging new partnerships among government, education and business.

Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, who is running for governor in 1998, says he hopes the administration continues to support research, particularly with funding "at private and public universities, as well as the UC labs."

Social, economic policy

But with the economy the No.1 campaign issue, Anderson says Clinton may take a page from the Republican agenda, head more toward the political right - and come up with some surprises.

"Nixon went to China and did away with the draft - stealing two crown jewels (from Democrats)," he says, and Reagan lifted the nuclear disarmament issue from his opponents.

"Don't underestimate his wiliness. If he doesn't go to jail," Anderson says, "he will improve the economy."

But such talk of a political course veering right deeply concerns Leal. She says more conservative economic policies might prevent the state's financially strapped urban areas from getting relief on urgent issues such as immigration, drug treatment, and health care.

In The City alone, about 1,000 people daily wait for entry into drug treatment, and welfare overhaul already has

"huge consequences," she says. "Maybe the president is going to do something - but I haven't seen any movement and it really concerns me . . . that women and children, people on welfare, the frail and elderly immigrants, won't be left on the street."

Assemblywoman Carole Migden, D-S.F., says those issues are inextricably linked to another that Clinton hammered home to California voters: education.

"We're poised to cooperate with (welfare) federal directives, but we can't mass produce jobs as rapidly as the measure would demand," Migden says. "There's an educational gap in California - half of the job seekers do not have a high school diploma to assume high-tech jobs. . . . It isn't enough to create jobs."

Clinton must now address ways to "make up the educational gap - because the people who will fall victim to welfare reform do not have access to high school diplomas or GEDs," she says.

Migden and Leal - both prominent lesbians in elected office - say Clinton must repair bridges to the gay and lesbian community. They overwhelmingly supported Clinton in 1992, but felt betrayed by Clinton's backpedaling on gays in the military and his backing of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied recognition to same-sex marriages.

Leal hopes Clinton has paid attention to presidential history as he plots his second term.

That history shows, Leal says, "the best presidents are the ones who remember their friends." &lt;